234 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



ition from the professedly naturalistic to the professedly 

 psychological treatment of mental phenomena. The 

 former was represented within the teaching profession 

 by the medicals and by the lecturers at the ]ilcole 

 Polytechnique, the latter by the lecturers at the l^cole 

 Normale. Auguste Comte, himself a student and 

 lecturer at the former institution, refers in a letter 

 to the impending " struggle between the Normaliens 

 and the Pohjtcchniciens, which he regarded as a special 

 form of the struggle between the metaphysical and 

 positivist schools." ^ 



&c.) By far the most interesting 

 account is the brilliant "Rapport" 

 on French philosophy during the 

 first two-thirds of the century which 

 M. Ravaisson wrote at the instiga- 

 tion of the Ministry of Public In- 

 struction under the Second Em- 

 pire (' La Philosophic en France au 

 XIXe Siecle,' 1868). It forms one 

 of a series of reports on the pro- 

 gress of Letters and Science in 

 France, suggested no doubt by, and 

 as a sequel to, the Reports which 

 the first Napoleon ordered the 

 Academy to prepare in the begin- 

 ning of the century. Modern 

 French philosophy first attained to 

 a prominent position in Euroi^ean 

 thought through Auguste Comte, 

 who, as we shall see later on, 

 opposed not only metaphysics but 

 also the psychological or intro- 

 spective method emphasised in the 

 school of Victor Cousin in opposi- 

 tion to the scientific method of the 

 naturalistic school. Nevertheless, 

 it must be admitted that through 

 taking note of the dififerent schools 

 of thought prevalent in neighbour- 

 ing countries, such as the common- 

 sense philosojjhy of the Scottish 

 school — mainly through Royer Col- 

 lard, and the idealistic philosophy 



of Germany — mainly through Ma- 

 dame de Stael (1766-1817, in her 

 ' Sur I'Allemagne,' 1813), and by 

 Degerando, as also by reviving the 

 study of Descartes and of the 

 Ancients, the spiritualistic school, 

 through its very eclecticism, brought 

 together a very large body of 

 thought and much material. More 

 recent thinkers, with whom we 

 shall become acquainted in the 

 sequel, have criticised and developed 

 this in an original manner. In 

 itself the psychology of the earlier 

 part of the century in France ap- 

 pears uncertain and inconclusive, 

 being in search rather than in pos- 

 session of a new principle wherewith 

 to oppose the purely intellectual con- 

 ception of the school of Condillac 

 with its materialistic tendencies. 

 Most of the prominent members of 

 this school, such as Maine de Biran, 

 Jouffroy, and Victor Cousin, are 

 continually changing their atti- 

 tudes, and must have been to the 

 young and ardent spirits of that 

 age suggestive and stimulating on 

 the one side, unsettling and un- 

 satisfying on the other. 



^ H. Hoffding, ' History of 

 Modern Philosophy,' English trans., 

 vol. ii. p. 319. 



